Misdiagnosis of constrictive pericarditis presenting with haemorrhagic pericardial effusion: a case report.

ABSTRACT: The symptoms and signs of constrictive pericarditis (CP) are often elusive at onset, with a long symptom-free period that may take weeks to decades to develop after an episode of CP or pericardial injury, leading to a misdiagnosis. In this case, a 58-year-old man complained of lower extremity fatigue, intermittent chest tightness, and shortness of breath. He was first misdiagnosed as neuropathy, later unsuccessfully treated as ischaemic heart disease though severe stenosis of the diagonal branch of left anterior descending artery was confirmed by computer tomography angiography. He was finally diagnosed as CP after carefully reading the initial computed tomography. The gross pathology of heart in situ originally observed at the time of pericardectomy indicated fibrinous pericarditis, massi

SUBMITTER: Li G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6601240 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature